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Dessert

Buckwheat Cakes

Buckwheat cakes are a batter made with buckwheat flour, water, salt, butter, molasses, and baking soda, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buckwheat and flour work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 660 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Buckwheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of lukewarm water.

  2. Pour the dissolved yeast into a pitcher with 2 quarts of lukewarm water.

  3. Make a smooth batter with the buckwheat flour and add the salt.

  4. Beat the batter well and let it stand overnight.

Prepare the next day

  1. In the morning, set aside 1 pint of the mixture.

  2. Add the remaining ingredients to the pitcher and mix lightly.

Bake

  1. Bake the batter on a hot griddle.

  2. For the next baking, add the reserved pint of batter to the mixture, pour in 1 pint of lukewarm water, add salt, and enough flour to make the batter as before.

  3. Just before baking, stir in ½ teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in a little boiling water.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Buckwheat + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Buckwheat + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buckwheat flour
Forms the batter's body and structure, which sets the cakes as they cook.
Baking soda
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become lighter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture in the finished cakes.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda just before baking. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the batter and moisture. If the batter waits, the gas escapes before the cakes hit the griddle, so they rise less.

Swap the buckwheat

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Buckwheatthe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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